Supreme Court upheld Death Sentence for 2000 Red Fort Attacker Mohammad Arif alias Ashfaq

The Supreme Court on 10 August 2011 upheld the death sentence for Mohammad Arif alias Ashfaq in connection with the 2000 Red Fort attack case. A division bench comprising justice VS Sirpukar and justice TS Thakur dismissed Ashfaq’s appeal which had challenged the death penalty awarded to him for the attack carried out on Delhi’s historic 17th century Red Fort by the sessions court and upheld by the Delhi high court while six others sentenced for various jail terms had been acquitted. 

The high court had previously dismissed Ashfaq's appeal against a trial court verdict awarding death penalty to him for waging war against India and killing an army soldier and an army barber and a civilian working for the army in the 22 December 2000 attack on the Red Fort.

The High Court had reversed the trial court findings against six convicts including the father-son duo Nazir Ahmed Qasid and Farooq Ahmed Qasid, sentenced to life imprisonment, and Ashfaq's Indian wife Rehana Yosuf Farooqui, a Pakistani national.

Other convicts acquitted by the high court included Babar Mohsin Baghwala, Sadaqat Ali and Matloob Alam, who were sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment for sheltering and providing fake Indian identity cards to Ashfaq.